) for
additional notes. ) for
additional notes.pp. 114-115
s soon
as men learned to value one another and the idea of consideration
was formed in their minds, everyone claimed a right to it,
and it was no longer possible for anyone to be refused consideration
without affront. This gave rise to the first duties of civility,
even among savages: and henceforth every
intentional wrong became an outrage, because together with
the hurt which might result from the injury, the
offended party saw an insult to his person which was often
more unbearable than the hurt itself. Thus, as everyone punished
the contempt shown him by another in a manner proportionate to
the esteem he accorded himself, revenge became terrible, and men
grew bloodthirsty and cruel. This is precisely the stage reached
by most of the savage peoples known to us; and it is for lack
of having sufficiently distinguished between different ideas and
seen how far those peoples already are from the first state of
nature
that so many authors have hastened to conclude that man is naturally
cruel and needs civil institutions to make him peaceable, whereas
in truth nothing is more peaceable than man in his primitive state;
placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes
and the fatal enlightenment of civilized man, limited
equally by reason and instinct to defending himself against evils
which threaten him, he is restrained by natural pity from doing
harm to anyone, even after receiving harm himself: for according
to the wise Locke: 'Where there is no property, there is no injury.
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